Is it possible to know too much? Of course not! That’s a rhetorical question.
Knowledge is always a good thing — almost always, anyway. We accumulate knowledge with each day of life. We learn and gather information from a variety of sources (our parents and teachers, books, educational seminars, friends and coworkers, the media and even — gasp — the Internet). But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Unfortunately, our sources of information aren’t always correct – even if well-meaning. Some information is incomplete while some is just plain wrong. More likely, though, it becomes outdated and obsolete. Technology marches on, sometimes faster than our ability to grasp it. So we must be careful.
Sometimes though, it can be overwhelming and, unfortunately, this can lead to frustration. We can even use it to make bad decisions if we’re not prudent. This is especially true of medical knowledge.
By its very nature, medical information is often complex and obtuse – especially to the Everyday Joe like you and me. Even highly educated physicians and researchers can get overwhelmed. That’s one of the reasons we see so much specialization these days. You wouldn’t go to your dentist to fix your broken leg, would you? Likewise, you wouldn’t want your cardiologist to fix your toothache. At least, I wouldn’t. Sadly, the days of Marcus Welby, M.D. are long gone.
The more complex our medical problem, the more we need a specialist. We can only hope that he or she keeps up with the latest published research. This is where our own knowledge can be priceless. We may not know or understand all the specifics but we can know enough to go in well-armed. At the very least, we’ll know what questions to ask. Online virtual support groups like those offered by AnCan are a good place to start.
So, by all means, read and listen and learn but never assume you know it all. Keep your physician on his toes.
As Sgt. Esterhaus from TV’s Hill Street Blues would say “Hey! Let’s be careful out there.”
As we all know, there is much more to mounting an offense against cancer or any other serious or chronic illness than just pharmacotherapy or radiation or surgery. An integrated approach that combines traditional medical interventions with lifestyle changes such as exercise, diet, yoga and meditation practice can play a vital role in strengthening our mind, body and spirit.
The attached document is a compilation of many online resources (graciously shared by Kevin Berrill, LCSW, at Ann’s Place in Danbury, CT) that offer mostly free access to computer and smartphone apps offering help with the practice of Mindfulness and Mindful Meditation. It includes resources for all levels of practice, some guided, some with music, some with both.
One of my favorites is called Insight Timer (https://insighttimer.com/) that has hundreds of free recordings to help you practice meditating, relaxing, gratitude, and sleep, to name a few. They can be anywhere from a few minutes long to over an hour, depending on the time you have available.
With heavy heart, I write this sad post to report my dear friend, Professor Bill Burhans, AnCan’s trusted Board and Advisory Board Member, and mentor and confidant to several readers, passed last Wednesday, Oct 9 after bravely managing his prostate cancer for six (6) years. He was 67 years old.
Bill was a remarkable man with a heart of gold who could not do enough to help others. Much of his life philosophy was developed through the loss of his mother to cancer in Bill’s teens, no doubt BRCA-induced; it left him and a younger sister raising the three youngest siblings. Bill’s caregiving for his mother significantly influenced how he responded to his own disease where it was of utmost importance to him that he did not create a burden for his immediate family.
Bill had a significant amount of cancer in his own family; that may have influenced his decision to become a cancer researcher although he once told me that was not his first choice of career; I seem to recall that may have had more to do with his love of nature and the outdoors. While he lived in Buffalo, teaching and researching at Roswell Park Cancer Institute since 1992, Bill’s heart lay in Vermont where he was raised and studied at the University of Vermont, both as an undergraduate and for his Ph.D. In later years, his favorite location for hiking, back-packing, X-country skiing, snow shoeing and stacking wood was in the Northeast Kingdom at his brother, Buzz’s house on The Hill although his siblings lived in the southern part of the state.
It was there that I first hung out with Professor Bill on a trip filled with synchronicity. One of my own rowing coaches, with the same nickname as Bill’s lifelong best buddy and brother, Buzz, was to be found teaching on a lake no more than 5 minutes from The Hill. Then it turned out that the future in-laws of another close friend and metastatic prostate cancer veteran from Marin, Ca. were also good friends of Buzz and his wife, Chris, and ran a maple syrup farm close by.
Bill and I first met through the UsTOO Prostate Cancer Forum on Inspire where Bill’s inimitable handle was @buffalowill ! His initial radiation treatment left Bill with significant damage to his urinary tract for the balance of his life, plaguing him with frequent serious UTI’s that often led to hospitalization. Bill hypothesized that his BRCA2 mutated genes made him way more susceptible to radiation damage than the normal patient; for his last 3 years or more, Bill had an intrathecal pain pump installed. Soon after diagnosis, Bill opted to germline test for inherited mutations based on his family history and was found positive for BRCA2 that tragically he has passed on. For several years Bill had been collaborating on the development of PARP-Inhibitors with other renown medical researchers like Dr. Johan de Bono at the Royal Marsden in the UK. Knowing the effectiveness of this drug category for BRCA driven disease, Bill argued to his own Roswell Park tumor board that they should prescribe olaparib off-label which they did. Bill got 2-3 years from suggesting this strategy.
Later on, when Bill switched his quarterback to Dr. Atish Choudhury at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, he participated in a clinical trial for an ATM inhibitor with a Parp-I (olaparib again). This time it was Dr. B’s own lab at Roswell Park that had discovered the key pathway through which the ATM inhibitor operated. Bill rapidly became a major celebrity on his visits to Dana-Farber.
Amongst Professor Bill’s other principle research interests were yeasts – in fact Bill characterized himself as a yeast geneticist. In this area,Bill spent a lot of time experimenting with sugar/glucose and its impact on cancer. He was one of the first scientists along with Valter Lungo to postulate the importance of fasting and the keto diet for cancer management. Unlike Lungo, Bill was not a self-promoter .. and for that we loved him.
It saddens us greatly that the published obituary fails to mention one word about prostate cancer. Awareness and teaching were amongst Bill’s highest priorities; in fact Bill delighted in telling his AnCan Advanced PCa Virtual Group about his hospice experience this past August and planned to repeat the presentation to a live audience at Roswell Park before becoming too sick.
Should you wish to make a donation in Professor Bill Burhan’s memory, you can do so here. A memorial service and mass will be held in Buffalo on Nov 16, 2019 – for further information, please e-mail me at info@ancan.org.
AnCan’s good buddy and Advanced Prostate Cancer Virtual Group participant, Jerry Deans – who also happens to be Vice Chair of our partner UsTOO’s Board – has been using a wonderful service, Mercy Medical Angels for some time. He recently wrote to us:
I want people to know about a service that is being offered to those who qualify financially or are veterans. It’s called Mercy Medical Angels https://mercymedical.org/
They have transported me free of charge from Richmond, Virginia to NYC on two occasions.
One trip was for a clinical trial at NY Presbyterian for a Progenics 18F]DCFPyL PSMA PET scan and the second trip was to meet with Dr Charles Drake for discussion of next steps in my treatment. One of the pilots Royce Repka recorded this video.
Jerry recently published a book on his and his wife, Patsi’s struggle with disease and much more. The book is titled Lost But Not Forgotten – read the Customer Reviews and you’ll find this tome is full of hope!
Some of you may already know that AnCan is privileged to partner with the Male Breast Cancer Coalition to offer a men’s virtual breast cancer support group. While the incidence is much lower in men, all too often we forget that breast cancer hits men as well as women. If you heard our presentation on immuno-oncology this past week, you would have heard me remind our illustrious presenter that too!
My radar is now tuned to male breast cancer, so it is not too surprising I caught a report on Cancer Network today reporting a study that reveals that when compared to women men have significantly worse overall survival from breast cancer. And this is still true when disease demographics are matched up. Read the Cancer Network report here that links to the original study.
Buried in all of this is what I suspect to be the reason men fare worse than women ….. they are diagnosed later at a more advanced stage. That is through no fault of MBCC who strives to make us all aware of male breast cancer!
With heavy heart, I write this sad post to report my dear friend, Professor Bill Burhans, 
Some of you may already know that AnCan is privileged to partner with the